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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24358363">At His Side</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cornerofmadness/pseuds/Cornerofmadness'>Cornerofmadness</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Prodigal Son (TV 2019)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Hints of Brightwell, Hurt/Comfort, Malcolm Bright Needs a Hug, Post-Episode: s01e11 Alone Time, Serious Injuries</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 09:41:21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,889</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24358363</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cornerofmadness/pseuds/Cornerofmadness</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>When Malcolm finally regains full consciousness after Watkins stabbed him, he finds Dani at his side.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>69</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Bite Sized Bits of Fic from 2020</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>At His Side</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/creepy_shetan/gifts">creepy_shetan</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p><b>Disclaimer:</b> Not mine, Chris Fedak and Sam Sklaver owns it </p><p><b>Notes:</b> written for creepy_shetan in comment_fic for the prompt author's choice, any + or / any, the care of a canon physical injury that canon didn't show or mention. Technically there's no graphic violence on screen but there are descriptions of what the violence did to Malcolm's body. Also written for the Get Your Words Out Yahtzee prompt of narcissistic</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>XXX</p><p>Malcolm surfaced into a lake of pain, wishing he was still under where it was dark, quiet and nothing hurt. Chills racked him and as he shuddered, sending new waves of agony through his body, he thought he heard his name being called. He turned his head blinking but the person in the chair next to him wasn’t his mother or Gil. Dani smiled at him and caressed his hair, heedless of the fact it had to feel gross from sweat and blood caked in it.</p><p>“Hey, Bright,” she said, the cheer sounding forced even to his benzo-fogged senses.  “You’re safe. It’s okay. Your mother said you were having trouble remembering that.”</p><p> </p><p>Was he? He remembered his mother and Gil being here the first few times he’d swum into consciousness. He licked his lips, drier than the salt flats. “Where?”</p><p>“You’re in the hospital,” she replied, and then wrinkled her nose. “Or if you meant your mom and Gil, he took her out to make sure she got something to eat. I said I’d sit with you for a while.” Dani took his right hand, giving it a squeeze. “You are so cold. Hold tight. I’ll be right back.”</p><p>“Lights,” he murmured. “Need light.”</p><p>Dani nodded as she stood and walked out the door. She flipped on the harsh hospital room lights for him. Next to him stood an IV stand with something draining into his arm, no three somethings: saline, blood and a little bag with a long name on it, probably an antibiotic. The stabbing came back to him. That accounted for the horrible pain in his gut. His left hand hurt worse. He lifted it so he could see it. It was swathed in dressings that had something stiff in them so he couldn’t move his hand and wrist. Rusty blood encrusted the dressings. They must have operated on it to put the bones back in the right place. Elevating it made the pain quadruple so he settled it back on the thin mattress.</p><p>“Here you are,” Dani said, returning with a blanket. She tucked it around his chest and neck gingerly. It was hot from those warmers hospitals had for such occasions. “This will feel better.”</p><p>“Thank you.” Malcolm blinked as she sat back down. “Watkins?”</p><p>“In prison. Your sister has a concussion but she’ll be fine,” Dani said. “We have his grandmother too.”</p><p>He nodded. “I want…to investigate that house. It’s a treasure trove for a profiler.”</p><p>Dani widened her eyes. “You are much more lucid now, aren’t you? And hate to break it to you, Bright, but you aren’t leaving that hospital bed for a long time. Even if you could, your former friends in the FBI have it all tied up.”</p><p>“Not my friends.” He rasped his shoe-leather tongue over cracked lips. “So thirsty.”</p><p>“You can’t have any water. I’m sorry.”</p><p>“Tell me about what’s happening,” he begged.</p><p>Before Dani could, a doctor and her nurse came in. Malcolm took Dani’s hand. The doctor shot Dani an apologetic look. “I’m sorry. I’m going to have to ask you to step out so I can check on Mr. Bright’s wound.”</p><p>Malcolm shook his head violent, holding on tighter to Dani’s hand. She squeezed back.</p><p>“Dr. Rossi, Malcolm was held captive,” Dani said, though Malcolm suspected the doctor already knew that. “He’s afraid to be alone.” She held up his hand locked onto hers.</p><p>“I understand that but patient privacy…”</p><p>“It’s okay,” Malcolm said. “She can stay…if she can bear looking at it.”</p><p> </p><p>Dani didn’t move. He hadn’t thought she would.</p><p>Dr. Rossi sighed softly but pushed aside the new warm blanket and the other bedding with it, leaving it over his hips. Her nurse positioned herself between Dani’s line of sight and the wound. Malcolm realized he hadn’t thought it out entirely as the nurse tugged his hospital gown away from his abdomen and folded it up into his armpits. At least his hips were still under the bedding.  She put a blue paper ‘sheet’ over his bared skin. </p><p>“You might not want to look,” Rossi said as she double gloved and let the nurse remove the dressings. “Dr. Lane had to pin your first metacarpal together but it looks good. You shouldn’t have diminished use of that thumb. We performed a FAST on you, which is a trauma-related focused abdominal ultrasound and a CT scan so I didn’t have to do too much of an exploratory laparotomy, which is good. That way I didn’t have to enlarge the incision much. You do have the scope’s port holes but that shouldn’t leave much of a scar. I’ve stitched up what was nicked inside you. Barring any infections you’ll be just fine, Malcolm. I did my best to clean up the knife wound so it should heal with less of a scar as well. As for your pain on a scale of one to-”</p><p>“Fifteen,” he said before she could finish.</p><p>“That answers that. Your mother brought in your meds. We’re still figuring out a good dose for your benzos. NSAIDS will make you bleed and we can’t have that right now. I don’t want to give you too much in the way of narcotics. The benzos will help you with the pain. I’ll make some adjustments. You’re lucky. The knife missed the spleen and the GI nicks were relatively minor, though I’m sure you’re not feeling very lucky.”</p><p>“Am alive,” he countered, staring down at the sutures on his abdomen. Something looking like blue fishing line stuck out on one end and his skin had been stained reddish-brown with betadine. Under that was a vicious amount of bruising like someone had painted him with indigo.  The area was swollen, and he hissed as Rossi’s strong hand probed around it.</p><p>“It’s soft,” she said. “Which is what we want. I feel confident we got all the little bleeders. We’ll keep checking. If your abdomen feels worse or feels tight, call us. If one of those pesky bleeders leak, your abdomen will fill up with blood and I’ll have to drain it. If you’ll excuse me…” Rossi lifted the bedding higher as a shield between her, Dani and his own line of sight. Her hands, somehow cold even through the gloves, found his testicles and Malcolm yelped, all but crushing Dani’s hand. “Sorry. We have to keep it cold in the hospital. You look good. Sometimes blood can pool in the scrotum, swelling it, which if we had that, I’d be taking you back for another CT scan.”</p><p>“Glad that’s okay,” he muttered, exchanging looks with Dani. Just what he wanted, a discussion about his jewels in front of his partner.</p><p>“Me too. All right, we’ll bandage you back up and let you get some rest,” Rossi said, setting to work.</p><p>“He’s very thirsty, Doctor. I know he can’t have water but is there anything you can give him?” Dani pleaded.</p><p>“He can have ice chips.” She nodded to her nurse who disappeared out the door.</p><p>By the time the nurse returned with a cup of ice, Rossi had him rebandaged and tucked back in. They left with a promise to give him some more of the benzos, which would probably make him sleep and make him not care so much about the pain. </p><p>Dani pressed an ice chip to his lips, and he took it, blushing a bit at having to be hand fed but at this point he was fairly sure he couldn’t have done it himself. In spite of that realization, he muttered around the ice, “I want to go home.”</p><p>“I’m not sure how you think that’ll happen.” Dani nodded to the IV stand.</p><p>“I can get that out.”</p><p>“You’ll do no such thing, Bright. Besides, it’s not the only tube in you.” She tapped the side of her nose. “That’s not oxygen.”</p><p>Malcolm felt his face clumsily, almost probing an eye with his good hand. He made a face. What was in his nose?</p><p>“They’re feeding you through that tube, and Dr. Rossi said it would be at least a week on that,” Dani answered his question. Oh great, an NG tube, best not to think on that or he might get sick and disrupt it. “And still not the only tube.” This time her eyes flicked to his waist.</p><p>His fingers didn’t have to find the tube this time. As he shifted on the bed trying to ease the pain in his side, he felt the tubing on his thigh and his eyes popped.</p><p>“Yeah, so you just lie there and behave like a good patient and I’ll tell you the story about how we found you, not that you apparently needed us to.” Dani smiled faintly and gave him another chip.</p><p>He sucked on it greedily, the water barely refreshing his parched mouth. “How? Did Colette get in your way?”</p><p>“Yes, very concerned that I understood you were a narcissistic bastard like your dad. All I saw was a woman ready to step on anyone she needed to to climb to the top. She doesn’t understand you at all. You might be a little arrogant about how good you are at your job but you’re not a narcissist.” Dani shrugged. “But she also helped when we went to the cabin.”</p><p>“You found it?” He couldn’t contain his surprise. Malcolm pointed to the ice, and she obliged him.</p><p>“That was all on Gil. He got it out of your father.”</p><p> </p><p>Malcolm nearly choked on the ice. Gil had gone to see his father? That couldn’t have gone well and yet, they were at the house almost at the same time his mother called for help. Gil had succeeded. He’d have to ask how. </p><p> </p><p>“I was scared, Bright,” she whispered, “So scared when you weren’t in the cabin. It must have frightened your father too because he gave up the secret passages under your house. God knows what we’ll find in there once forensics is done.”</p><p>“I’m glad you came to my rescue.” He managed a smile. “More than you’ll ever know.”</p><p>Her eyes glistened and Dani averted her gaze so he couldn’t see her cry. He took her hand and squeezed it. She returned it.</p><p>“Know what you can do for me now?”</p><p>“What?” she breathed, her voice crackling.</p><p>“Get me a huge cappuccino or Earl Grey tea, your choice.”</p><p>He got what he wanted, a laugh, a little frightened and hysterical but Dani laughed. She turned back to him, wiping her cheeks dry.</p><p>“And how do you think you’re going to drink that, Mr. Nothing By Mouth?” She smiled at him.</p><p>He tapped his nose and the NG tube. “Put it through here, cool it first though.”</p><p>Dani laughed harder. “Not even for all your mother’s money.”</p><p>Malcolm smiled and let his eyes shut for a moment. He could feel the drugs and exhaustion sucking him back down. “Dani, can you turn on the TV? I want the noise.”</p><p>“You look half asleep already.”</p><p>“I am but still.”</p><p>Dani fished up the controller. “What would you like?”</p><p>“BBC America or SyFy if they have it,” he murmured.</p><p>He didn’t notice which she found. She took his hand again once she had the TV on. He fell asleep holding it, safe with her at his side.</p>
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